2025 Le Pin, Pomerol

Vivacious, lifted style of Le Pin with layers of silky, velvety, black cherries, licorice, herbs, spices, and orange rind. There is concentration, opulence, and most importantly, lift, so even with all the weight of the fruit, the wine feels up-beat, and vibrant, with lingering notes of crushed flint, and gravel stones, black plums, cherries, and licorice. The wine offers incredible length and energy wrapping up everything up with a soft, but, firm, silky, refined finish. Produced from 100% Merlot, 14% ABV, 3.79 pH, the harvest took place September 5 and September 10. Yields were only 20 hectoliters per hectare, making production quite small this year. Drink from 2030-2055.

A heavenly, wow-inducing wine in the vintage, the 2025 Château Le Pin is 100% Merlot from yields of just 20 hectoliters per hectare, which was harvested on September 4 after the rains to help carry a touch more generosity and charm. Resting in 65% new French oak, it has a Grand Cru Burgundy-like style in its framboise, spicy wood, dried flowers, and graphite-driven aromatics. Full-bodied on the palate, it has a deep, layered, seamless mouthfeel, ultra-fine, velvety tannins, and flawless balance, all carried through a gorgeous finish. Hitting 14% alcohol with a pH of 3.79, I'd say this is one of the wines of the vintage, and it brings more richness, sexiness, and texture than most. It will be impossible to find given the tiny quantities, but wow, what a wine.

Deep colour in the glass. Quite a dark but mineral nose with iron, stony accents, cool blackcurrant, cola, graphite, blood and violet notes. Soft and smooth straight away with a sexy, liquorice and perfumed character, gently chewy texture yet keeping that liquorice, tobacco, iron and squid ink minerality that puts much more stone than sun in the glass. Structure is there but this has freshness and coolness overall. I love the harmony, perfume and silk – dark blue fruit with a soft fleshy aspect, juicy acidity and cool flinty finish. It’s heady in a way many other wines this vintage aren’t, understated yet with the hint of Le Pin confidence, lots of spice on the finish – cigar, tobacco, dark chocolate and cedar – plus such layering of intense flavours. Really impressively constructed with unmistakable delicacy of texture but huge intensity of flavour. Ends with a cool and salty grip. I actually really quite love this. A yield of 20hl/ha. The team only picked the round and juicy grapes after 15-20mm rain at the end of August. Less than 1g berries. 3.79pH.

Luscious, plush fruits, layered and textured, olive pit, bilberry, blackberry, concentrated yet bright and vivid, a more sculpted Le Pin compared to its normal lush curves, concentrated and powerful, with a huge future ahead of it. 65% new oak. 3.79 pH. Harvest September 5 to 10,

The 2025 Le Pin is a wild, exotic beauty. Deeply layered spice overtones and a kiss of French oak lead into a core of vibrant dark-fleshed fruit. In this tasting, Le Pin comes across as a bit heavy and monolithic, largely because of yields that were just 20 hectoliters per hectare. I am sure those who can taste Le Pin will adore it, but personally, I prefer the greater tension and energy of its sibling, L'If, a much more contemporary wine that also costs about 1/20th the price. Expect the 2025 Le Pin to be rare (only ten barrels produced) and very pricey. The big news at Le Pin is that the estate has added a choice parcel measuring about one hectare planted with Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon that formerly belonged to L'Evangile. That will increase Le Pin's planted surface area from two to three hectares (plus another 0.7 hectares that are being redeveloped). Sadly, this is the last vintage made by Guillaume Thienpont.

The 2025 Le Pin was picked in two passes through the vines on September 5 and 10 at just 20 hl/ha due to the small berry size, matured in two-thirds new oak and one-third one-year-old (Seguin Moreau and Taransaud). The younger vines that were stressed were not used in the blend. It takes time to unfold on the nose, with red berry fruit, black truffle and veins of graphite. The oak is very discretely used here. The palate is medium-bodied with velvety tannins, fine depth, though this is more a linear, vertical Le Pin rather than the more flamboyant 2022. A tingle of white and black pepper, a dab of licorice towards the finish that lingers temptingly. I suspect this will demand three to five years to really show its mettle.

Picked in just two days, with hand sorting to eliminate any raisined berries, the 2025 Le Pin exhibits aromas of sweet cherries and raspberries along with hints of espresso roast, incense and pencil lead. Medium- to full-bodied, rich and layered, it's velvety, fleshy and enveloping, retaining its flamboyant personality but also displaying the unusual concentration of the vintage.